I ask them to take a poem <br />and hold it up to the light <br />like a color slide <br /> <br />or press an ear against its hive. <br /> <br />I say drop a mouse into a poem <br />and watch him probe his way out, <br /> <br />or walk inside the poem's room <br />and feel the walls for a light switch. <br /> <br />I want them to waterski <br />across the surface of a poem <br />waving at the author's name on the shore. <br /> <br />But all they want to do <br />is tie the poem to a chair with rope <br />and torture a confession out of it. <br /> <br />They begin beating it with a hose <br />to find out what it really means.<br /><br />Billy Collins<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/introduction-to-poetry/
